Book Review: Terry Deary

Terry Deary, author of the British children's book (and now cd) series, Horrible Histories, takes on the medieval period in The Measly Middle Ages.

Who the heck is Terry Deary? If you're from Britain, you may still not know his name, but you will know his series of history books for children, called "Horrible Histories". Since 1992, Deary has written over 45 books about British history through the ages (though he has recently branched out to roast the rest of the world). His books include gruesome tales from history ranging from the Stone Age up to modern times. They are, of course, illustrated. In color. Garishly. My personal favorite in illustrations is the hilarious cover for Bloody Scotland showing two 18th century British soldiers looking uphill at a screaming Highland Scot in full tartan coming downhill, screaming, sword-first. One soldier looks at the other and says, "I think we're about to get kilt."

Unlike this week's reviewed film, however, Deary's books and cds are (at least technically) non-fiction. Deary doesn't try very hard to stay completely within a period. He treats the witchcrazes in Scotland in The Measly Middle Ages, for example, even though the Scottish witchcrazes were mainly a 16th century Reformation-era phenomenon. Deary also limits the book to Britain between the Norman Invasion in 1066 and 1485. But The Measly Middle Ages is only one of six Horrible Histories books about the Middle Ages. Deary has also written The Smashing Saxons (about early medieval Britain), The Vicious Vikings (about the Viking invasions of the 8th and 9th centuries), The Stormin' Normans (about the Norman invasion of Britain), Dark Knights and Dingy Castles and a new one called simply "Knights".

Sounds like a lot of battles, doesn't it? But that's not because Deary is interested in romanticizing the Middle Ages. Far from it. He tells the kind of gruesome stories that kids don't get in your average history book-the nasty bits. It's done him well-he is a successful author of over 120 books. Despite (or perhaps because of) his audience, Deary particularly relishes gruesome stories where children meet an untimely end in Gashleycrumb Tinies fashion. His young audience thoroughly enjoys them.

One could argue that Deary is fostering a view of the Middle Ages as nasty, brutish and short, but he also makes history fun. He sends up historical events, making them about real people who did ridiculous things and even, occasionally, laughed at themselves about it. Not bad for a series of children's books.